July 16, 2025 • 14 mins
Hey, Friend!
Ministers depend on volunteers to help a church run smoothly. We literally cannot do our jobs without them. Our job is to pour into those volunteers our time, our attention, our resources, and any training they might want or need.
In fact, we have the responsibility to lead by empowering our team members, fostering their trust, and building a culture of collaboration and accountability.
In today’s episode, I share some strategies for doing so.
I pray this blesses you!
Becky
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Today's message is for any leader who has a team of volunteers.
(00:05):
I'm going to use the language of ministry though because ministers absolutely cannot do their
job without a team of volunteers because churches are largely run by volunteers, but they depend
on the leadership of the church from the elders down to the ministers to provide the direction.
(00:26):
In last week's episode, I talked about not just dependency, but actually building a healthy
dependency on you as the ministry leader to provide the vision and the direction and the
accountability and the support that volunteers need.
In today's episode, I'm going to talk about growing capacity in your volunteers.
(00:50):
We do this by empowering them by fostering trust and building a culture of collaboration
and accountability.
I'm going to give you some strategies for that.
Want to know more?
Let's dive in to today's episode.
Hey, friend.
Are you a people-pleasing conflict avoiding leader?
Is your secret relationship with fear affecting your leadership decisions?
(01:14):
Do you want to learn how to build credibility and confidence or to navigate difficult conversations?
Do you long to manage your time without sacrificing your family or self-care?
Welcome to leadership becomes her.
I'm Becky Burroughs, your host and a minister and life and leadership coach with over 50 years
(01:35):
experience in leadership.
I firmly believe God has given you everything you need to lead well.
You have the toolbox.
You just need to learn how to use the tools.
So get comfy or start a mindless task.
You know how to pause or rewind if you need to.
Let's get started.
(02:02):
So in last week's episode, as I talked about creating a healthy dependency, that strategy
can help build trust, loyalty and mutual accountability.
And so I suggested that some of the ways you can do that is by accepting your role as the
(02:23):
central source of the vision and the direction for the ministry.
So to do that, you've got to understand the church's mission.
Most churches have a mission statement.
For example, my church exists to love, grow and send disciples.
So there's usually some simple sentence like that and it's your job as the minister to
make sure that everything you do in the ministry is in line with what the leadership has
(02:48):
established as the mission of the church and to pass that on to your volunteers so that
they're doing the same thing in their classroom or their area of responsibility.
And so I won't go into all the things.
I'd like you to listen to last week's episode for that because today what I want to talk
about is how to create capacity in your volunteers.
(03:10):
And I think ministers have a unique challenge in balancing creating capacity with a sense
of dependency.
And so here's how we create capacity in volunteers.
First of all, you have to be committed to empowering them.
As I suggested in last week's episode, it is your job as the leader to develop those
(03:35):
under your leadership.
You can't do that without being in relationship with those who serve in your ministry, which
quite frankly, you ought to be doing anyway.
But as you get into relationship with each one of your volunteers, you learn what they're
passionate about, what they're good at, what they have experience doing, what they don't
like doing, and so that you can appropriately place them in your ministry in areas where
(04:00):
they are gifted and passionate.
And the ultimate goal is you've placed them in an area where they're gifted and passionate
and you want them to take ownership of that role and continue to grow in that role.
So one of the things you need to do is to invest in their spiritual development and invest
in their skill development.
(04:21):
Provide leadership training, encourage biblical education, give them learning opportunities
such as maybe a Bible study you all do together.
They're literally together in person or you're providing them with the Bible study materials
online to do on their own.
Maybe you're taking your volunteers with you to a workshop.
(04:42):
You want to deepen their understanding of faith in general and with the goal of making
them more effective in whatever their ministry task is.
You want to empower your volunteers with responsibility.
They don't want to be afraid that they can't make a single move without your approval,
(05:03):
but that they know where the boundaries are, what your vision is within the ministry.
And you want to give them real ownership such as allowing them to oversee a particular
thing or to run something or to manage any event.
When volunteers are trusted with responsibility, they grow in their skills, they grow in their
(05:26):
confidence and the ministry benefits from their leadership under your leadership because
you're working to develop their leadership.
Some ministers mistakenly believe that and I see this in corporate leadership as well.
I'm the leader therefore I should be doing the most things, but it is not true.
(05:49):
As the leader, it is your job to make sure that things are getting done and that they are
in line with the vision that's been cast and the boundaries that have been set.
But you're overseeing when I was a high school principal when I went through administrative
training, they called it leadership by walking around.
(06:12):
As the principal, I couldn't teach all the classes.
I couldn't grade all the papers.
It was my job to make sure everything got done and the way things get done, the way you
can easily hold people accountable is when they know you are, you can be a presence at any
time.
You're in and out of classrooms, you're watching what's happening, you're interacting,
(06:34):
you're becoming a part of it, you're encouraging your teachers, they know that you are present,
you are there, you can be called upon for a question, you can run, get some materials for
them if they need it.
You know what's going on in your classrooms because you're managing your ministry by being
a presence on Sunday morning, which means you do not need to be your first sub, you need
(06:59):
to be your last resort because if you're tied up teaching fourth grade, all everybody else
knows is, well where is she?
Well, I haven't seen her.
I saw her before church of class, I haven't seen her since.
And you can say, well, I was busy teaching fourth grade and yes, sometimes that has to happen,
but it should not be your first, you should not be your first choice to sub.
(07:22):
You should be your absolute last choice because then you can't manage by walking around,
you can't be a presence.
One of the other things that you can do to develop those, to empower your volunteers is
to develop ministry teams.
Instead of one person being the only one that does a certain thing, encourage the volunteers
(07:43):
to work in teams.
This fosters a sense of shared responsibility and it allows them to build the capacity to
handle more complex tasks as they collaborate since they all have different skills, different
gifts, different passions.
You want to create a culture of ownership and contribution.
(08:05):
And one way you can do this is by giving your volunteers a vision, help them understand
the big picture of the mission of the church as I mentioned a minute ago and how
their work contributes to the overall vision and how important their role is when people
feel that their efforts are meaningful.
They take more responsibility for their own growth and it affects the success of the whole
(08:29):
ministry.
You want to encourage initiative and feedback, invite your volunteers to suggest new ideas
or to take the lead in organizing projects.
Again, this builds a sense of ownership and gives them a sense of independence, which also
enhances their capacity to handle future challenges.
(08:52):
You want to foster an accountability and reflection in your ministry with regular check-ins and
encouragement.
Set up one-on-one meetings with your volunteers.
Check on their progress, offer encouragement, discuss any challenges they're facing and
use these check-ins to help them set goals and address weaknesses and to celebrate growth.
(09:15):
And you want to develop a mentorship culture where you pair your less experienced volunteers
with the seasoned ones for mentorship.
And this helps volunteers grow spiritually and practically and it also builds leadership
capacity within the ministry.
And then create an atmosphere of shared leadership.
(09:38):
And you do this by empowering your volunteer leaders, create opportunities for volunteers
to take leadership roles, maybe on a rotating basis or within specific ministry areas.
When you rotate leadership to spread responsibility, it empowers others to lead different initiatives.
(10:00):
You want to encourage cross-training.
Change your volunteers to take various roles within the ministry.
This helps them become more versatile and capable of stepping in whenever needed.
And this makes ministry more resilient and helps develop well-rounded leaders.
Going back to the example I gave when I was a high school principal who couldn't do all
(10:21):
the things in all of the classrooms, my job was to pour into the teachers who were pouring
into the kids.
And yes, I also developed relationships with the kids.
That's important as well.
And honestly, it's so fascinating to me that most of the people that I have talked to and
most of these are women who go into children's ministry for example or the men and women who
(10:44):
go into student ministry do so because they really love a particular age group or they connect
with a particular age group.
And yet they get into that ministry and they find out their job has a lot of administrative
tasks.
And they depend on volunteers to do some, if not all of the teaching depending on the age
(11:04):
level we're talking about.
And so it is so important that you pour into the people who are pouring into the kids and
you balance your time between spending time with the kids getting to know them and spending
time with your very valuable volunteers.
And a lot of the time you're spending with them is some of your time during the week.
(11:26):
And you say, well, I don't know how to do that if I'm doing all the tasks.
Maybe if you have volunteers who are stay at home moms or maybe they work from home or they
are retired or they're part time and you invite one or two to come up and help you with
a particular task and say, hey, I want to spend some time with you and I'm doing this task.
(11:46):
One of know if you want to help me with it and we can do it together and we can talk
we'll go to lunch.
Think of creative ways you can spend time with your volunteers maybe every month just I'm
not saying necessarily every week, but once a month you have one on one or one on group volunteer
time.
Maybe you have two or four teachers that are teaching a particular level.
(12:09):
Maybe they rotate and you pick one day a month.
You spend a few hours with those teachers.
Maybe you have texting threads going with teachers or you Marco Polo and you get to it
when you can be creative and think of ways you can spend one on one time or one on small
group time with your volunteers so that you can pour into them.
(12:32):
You can encourage them.
You can empower them.
You can ask them questions and see what they need and how you can serve them.
I promise you will win in this if you can spend some designated time with your volunteers
and build those relationships.
You are going to learn how to place those volunteers in their area of giftedness and passion.
(12:55):
Maybe after you get to know a volunteer you realize wow she volunteered for the nursery
when her child was a baby, but this is not really where her giftedness is.
This is not really where her passion is and now that her baby is now in the four year
old class, I see her doing this other thing.
I want to talk to her about that and see if that's how she feels about it.
(13:16):
So building capacity in your volunteers should be a major project whether you can work
on it every week or every month or once a year you've got to figure out a way to get to
know your volunteers to be in relationship with them.
Learn what matters to them, what they're passionate about, what they're naturally good at, how
(13:38):
they've been gifted and make sure that where you have them placed is in line with their
giftedness and their passion.
Thanks for listening, I hope this has been helpful to you.
Hey, let's do this again next week.
It is my prayer that this podcast inspired you, blessed you, or made you think.
(14:01):
If so, please share it with a friend, subscribe, and please leave a review.
Hey, I want to connect with you.
Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Send me a DM or email me at hello@beckyburroughs.com.
If you are a Christian woman who leads and you are interested in one of my Leadership Boot
(14:21):
camps for Women in Ministry, this is a four week workshop, or becoming part of a Kairos
Cohort, your long group coaching, send me a DM or an email for more information.
We'll talk soon.
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(14:42):
(upbeat music)
Today's message is for any leader who has a team of volunteers.
(00:05):
I'm going to use the language of ministry though because ministers absolutely cannot do their
job without a team of volunteers because churches are largely run by volunteers, but they depend
on the leadership of the church from the elders down to the ministers to provide the direction.
(00:26):
In last week's episode, I talked about not just dependency, but actually building a healthy
dependency on you as the ministry leader to provide the vision and the direction and the
accountability and the support that volunteers need.
In today's episode, I'm going to talk about growing capacity in your volunteers.
(00:50):
We do this by empowering them by fostering trust and building a culture of collaboration
and accountability.
I'm going to give you some strategies for that.
Want to know more?
Let's dive in to today's episode.
Hey, friend.
Are you a people-pleasing conflict avoiding leader?
Is your secret relationship with fear affecting your leadership decisions?
(01:14):
Do you want to learn how to build credibility and confidence or to navigate difficult conversations?
Do you long to manage your time without sacrificing your family or self-care?
Welcome to leadership becomes her.
I'm Becky Burroughs, your host and a minister and life and leadership coach with over 50 years
(01:35):
experience in leadership.
I firmly believe God has given you everything you need to lead well.
You have the toolbox.
You just need to learn how to use the tools.
So get comfy or start a mindless task.
You know how to pause or rewind if you need to.
Let's get started.
(02:02):
So in last week's episode, as I talked about creating a healthy dependency, that strategy
can help build trust, loyalty and mutual accountability.
And so I suggested that some of the ways you can do that is by accepting your role as the
(02:23):
central source of the vision and the direction for the ministry.
So to do that, you've got to understand the church's mission.
Most churches have a mission statement.
For example, my church exists to love, grow and send disciples.
So there's usually some simple sentence like that and it's your job as the minister to
make sure that everything you do in the ministry is in line with what the leadership has
(02:48):
established as the mission of the church and to pass that on to your volunteers so that
they're doing the same thing in their classroom or their area of responsibility.
And so I won't go into all the things.
I'd like you to listen to last week's episode for that because today what I want to talk
about is how to create capacity in your volunteers.
(03:10):
And I think ministers have a unique challenge in balancing creating capacity with a sense
of dependency.
And so here's how we create capacity in volunteers.
First of all, you have to be committed to empowering them.
As I suggested in last week's episode, it is your job as the leader to develop those
(03:35):
under your leadership.
You can't do that without being in relationship with those who serve in your ministry, which
quite frankly, you ought to be doing anyway.
But as you get into relationship with each one of your volunteers, you learn what they're
passionate about, what they're good at, what they have experience doing, what they don't
like doing, and so that you can appropriately place them in your ministry in areas where
(04:00):
they are gifted and passionate.
And the ultimate goal is you've placed them in an area where they're gifted and passionate
and you want them to take ownership of that role and continue to grow in that role.
So one of the things you need to do is to invest in their spiritual development and invest
in their skill development.
(04:21):
Provide leadership training, encourage biblical education, give them learning opportunities
such as maybe a Bible study you all do together.
They're literally together in person or you're providing them with the Bible study materials
online to do on their own.
Maybe you're taking your volunteers with you to a workshop.
(04:42):
You want to deepen their understanding of faith in general and with the goal of making
them more effective in whatever their ministry task is.
You want to empower your volunteers with responsibility.
They don't want to be afraid that they can't make a single move without your approval,
(05:03):
but that they know where the boundaries are, what your vision is within the ministry.
And you want to give them real ownership such as allowing them to oversee a particular
thing or to run something or to manage any event.
When volunteers are trusted with responsibility, they grow in their skills, they grow in their
(05:26):
confidence and the ministry benefits from their leadership under your leadership because
you're working to develop their leadership.
Some ministers mistakenly believe that and I see this in corporate leadership as well.
I'm the leader therefore I should be doing the most things, but it is not true.
(05:49):
As the leader, it is your job to make sure that things are getting done and that they are
in line with the vision that's been cast and the boundaries that have been set.
But you're overseeing when I was a high school principal when I went through administrative
training, they called it leadership by walking around.
(06:12):
As the principal, I couldn't teach all the classes.
I couldn't grade all the papers.
It was my job to make sure everything got done and the way things get done, the way you
can easily hold people accountable is when they know you are, you can be a presence at any
time.
You're in and out of classrooms, you're watching what's happening, you're interacting,
(06:34):
you're becoming a part of it, you're encouraging your teachers, they know that you are present,
you are there, you can be called upon for a question, you can run, get some materials for
them if they need it.
You know what's going on in your classrooms because you're managing your ministry by being
a presence on Sunday morning, which means you do not need to be your first sub, you need
(06:59):
to be your last resort because if you're tied up teaching fourth grade, all everybody else
knows is, well where is she?
Well, I haven't seen her.
I saw her before church of class, I haven't seen her since.
And you can say, well, I was busy teaching fourth grade and yes, sometimes that has to happen,
but it should not be your first, you should not be your first choice to sub.
(07:22):
You should be your absolute last choice because then you can't manage by walking around,
you can't be a presence.
One of the other things that you can do to develop those, to empower your volunteers is
to develop ministry teams.
Instead of one person being the only one that does a certain thing, encourage the volunteers
(07:43):
to work in teams.
This fosters a sense of shared responsibility and it allows them to build the capacity to
handle more complex tasks as they collaborate since they all have different skills, different
gifts, different passions.
You want to create a culture of ownership and contribution.
(08:05):
And one way you can do this is by giving your volunteers a vision, help them understand
the big picture of the mission of the church as I mentioned a minute ago and how
their work contributes to the overall vision and how important their role is when people
feel that their efforts are meaningful.
They take more responsibility for their own growth and it affects the success of the whole
(08:29):
ministry.
You want to encourage initiative and feedback, invite your volunteers to suggest new ideas
or to take the lead in organizing projects.
Again, this builds a sense of ownership and gives them a sense of independence, which also
enhances their capacity to handle future challenges.
(08:52):
You want to foster an accountability and reflection in your ministry with regular check-ins and
encouragement.
Set up one-on-one meetings with your volunteers.
Check on their progress, offer encouragement, discuss any challenges they're facing and
use these check-ins to help them set goals and address weaknesses and to celebrate growth.
(09:15):
And you want to develop a mentorship culture where you pair your less experienced volunteers
with the seasoned ones for mentorship.
And this helps volunteers grow spiritually and practically and it also builds leadership
capacity within the ministry.
And then create an atmosphere of shared leadership.
(09:38):
And you do this by empowering your volunteer leaders, create opportunities for volunteers
to take leadership roles, maybe on a rotating basis or within specific ministry areas.
When you rotate leadership to spread responsibility, it empowers others to lead different initiatives.
(10:00):
You want to encourage cross-training.
Change your volunteers to take various roles within the ministry.
This helps them become more versatile and capable of stepping in whenever needed.
And this makes ministry more resilient and helps develop well-rounded leaders.
Going back to the example I gave when I was a high school principal who couldn't do all
(10:21):
the things in all of the classrooms, my job was to pour into the teachers who were pouring
into the kids.
And yes, I also developed relationships with the kids.
That's important as well.
And honestly, it's so fascinating to me that most of the people that I have talked to and
most of these are women who go into children's ministry for example or the men and women who
(10:44):
go into student ministry do so because they really love a particular age group or they connect
with a particular age group.
And yet they get into that ministry and they find out their job has a lot of administrative
tasks.
And they depend on volunteers to do some, if not all of the teaching depending on the age
(11:04):
level we're talking about.
And so it is so important that you pour into the people who are pouring into the kids and
you balance your time between spending time with the kids getting to know them and spending
time with your very valuable volunteers.
And a lot of the time you're spending with them is some of your time during the week.
(11:26):
And you say, well, I don't know how to do that if I'm doing all the tasks.
Maybe if you have volunteers who are stay at home moms or maybe they work from home or they
are retired or they're part time and you invite one or two to come up and help you with
a particular task and say, hey, I want to spend some time with you and I'm doing this task.
(11:46):
One of know if you want to help me with it and we can do it together and we can talk
we'll go to lunch.
Think of creative ways you can spend time with your volunteers maybe every month just I'm
not saying necessarily every week, but once a month you have one on one or one on group volunteer
time.
Maybe you have two or four teachers that are teaching a particular level.
(12:09):
Maybe they rotate and you pick one day a month.
You spend a few hours with those teachers.
Maybe you have texting threads going with teachers or you Marco Polo and you get to it
when you can be creative and think of ways you can spend one on one time or one on small
group time with your volunteers so that you can pour into them.
(12:32):
You can encourage them.
You can empower them.
You can ask them questions and see what they need and how you can serve them.
I promise you will win in this if you can spend some designated time with your volunteers
and build those relationships.
You are going to learn how to place those volunteers in their area of giftedness and passion.
(12:55):
Maybe after you get to know a volunteer you realize wow she volunteered for the nursery
when her child was a baby, but this is not really where her giftedness is.
This is not really where her passion is and now that her baby is now in the four year
old class, I see her doing this other thing.
I want to talk to her about that and see if that's how she feels about it.
(13:16):
So building capacity in your volunteers should be a major project whether you can work
on it every week or every month or once a year you've got to figure out a way to get to
know your volunteers to be in relationship with them.
Learn what matters to them, what they're passionate about, what they're naturally good at, how
(13:38):
they've been gifted and make sure that where you have them placed is in line with their
giftedness and their passion.
Thanks for listening, I hope this has been helpful to you.
Hey, let's do this again next week.
It is my prayer that this podcast inspired you, blessed you, or made you think.
(14:01):
If so, please share it with a friend, subscribe, and please leave a review.
Hey, I want to connect with you.
Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Send me a DM or email me at hello@beckyburroughs.com.
If you are a Christian woman who leads and you are interested in one of my Leadership Boot
(14:21):
camps for Women in Ministry, this is a four week workshop, or becoming part of a Kairos
Cohort, your long group coaching, send me a DM or an email for more information.
We'll talk soon.
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(14:42):
(upbeat music)
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